Main Menu

Search form

Letting The Muslim Brotherhood Off The Hook

Are Republicans going wobbly?

This past week, rumors swirled around Capitol Hill that Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) was pushing for the ouster of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) from the Intelligence Committee. The rationale: Bachmann, Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX), Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), Rep. Tom Rooney (R-FL), and Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) sent a letter to the Inspectors General of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, and the State Department regarding Muslim Brotherhood influence in the federal government.

Actually, two letters were sent. The first letter was three pages long, and pointed out that many policies of the federal government seemed to be directed toward currying favor with the Brotherhood. “We deem it imperative that your office also conduct an investigation of the extent to which such influence operations may have contributed to a fundamental misunderstanding of the Muslim Brotherhood by US intelligence – which could, in turn, have contributed to the policy community’s susceptibility to subversion at the hands of the Brothers and their allies,” says the letter.

The second letter expanded on the first. It quoted “The Muslim Brotherhood in America: The Enemy Within,” a well-documented report from the Center for Security Policy, which noted that Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin, “has three family members – her late father, her mother and her brother – connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations. Her position affords her routine access to the Secretary and to policy-making.”

None of this is false. It does not allege that Abedin is herself a messenger of the Brotherhood. It does, however, state that she is associated closely with many who are. And there have already been allegations that Abedin herself worked with the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA), an organization that had on its Advisory Editorial Board one Abdullah Omar Naseef, for at least a year during her tenure. Naseef was connected with Al Qaeda. To wonder, therefore, about Abedin’s comfort level with Muslim extremists would not be out of bounds.

But the media has decided that the representatives were way out of line in even questioning the State Department’s pro-Muslim Brotherhood bias. And many Republicans, afraid of their shadows, have agreed to that premise.

Glenn Beck confirmed the rumor on his program last week:

They are threatening – from the Republicans, Boehner and McCain – threatening Michele Bachmann that if she does not apologize for this letter today, she will lose her position on the intelligence committee. She is perfectly willing to have that happen. I am telling you that is a huge, huge mistake. And it is being orchestrated by those who either have their heads up someplace where their heads don’t belong or they’re getting marching orders from the very peaceful, very secular, nonpolitical, just sweet as pumpkin pie Muslim Brotherhood.

The threat of the Muslim Brotherhood is very real. It’s not that they’re ready to take over the United States at any moment. But they are trying to take over the Middle East, and the Obama administration has emboldened them to do so. President Obama invited the Muslim Brotherhood to his speech in Cairo in 2009; President Obama has continued to fund the Brotherhood after their takeover of Egypt; he has supported the Brotherhood-sponsored revolution in Libya.

So either the Obama administration is open to the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood, or it is being duped. From that perspective, the Bachmann letter is the moderate option, not the extreme position that the congressional establishment, Republican and Democrat, has claimed.